Mill Valley hires its first 'communications specialist'

In the wake of scathing community complaints about lack of transparency and lapses in communication in Mill Valley city government, the city has hired its first ever "communications specialist" to help it "get out in front of potentially complex issues."

Jim Welte, 40, a former Marin Independent Journal business reporter who has also worked for Mill Valley Patch as a reporter and editor, has been hired to use traditional and social media to keep residents informed in an "engaging, clear way," according to his job description.

"So when an issue comes up at a City Council meeting, people don't feel like, 'Oh, no, I never heard about this,'" said Linn Walsh, assistant to the city manager.

At an acrimonious community meeting last week, residents of Lovell Avenue, angry about multiple residential building projects that have disrupted their neighborhood, criticized the planning department for lack of transparency in the planning process and an absence of accountability. A contrite City Manager Jim McCann apologized for the city's "poor work." Three days later, he announced the resignation of Planning Director Mike Moore.

Welte, a Mill Valley resident, said his hiring was not in reaction to the current controversy.

"I've been having discussions with the city manager for four or five months about this position, " he said, noting that it just happened to have been announced amid the turmoil of the past two weeks. "Every city can use a better communications strategy. This is an effort to add as much transparency to the equation as we can."

Trouble has been brewing in the planning department for some time. It first surfaced a year ago, when planning commission chairman David Rand used a routine annual report to the city council to criticize Moore and his department for "significant lapses in communication" leading to what he called "dysfunction" in the planning process.

Welte has been charged with developing a set of recommendations, customized for different departments, to "increase public awareness, engage the community and build trust by providing timely, accurate, transparent and coordinated public information."

In addition to heading off potential communication problems, he has been asked to "highlight the good work that individual departments are doing."

His contract calls for him to work 20 hours a week at $65 an hour. He is also employed part time by the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce to increase membership and handle community outreach. Walsh, the city manager's assistant, sees no conflict of interest in a city consultant also working for the business community.

"Jim has been clear that he isn't taking on any of the advocacy roles that the former head of the chamber took on," she said. "He is there to create a buzz in the community about business."

As the city's communications specialist, Welte will work with Walsh and with Sean Mooney, who has been web librarian for the Mill Valley Public Library and is now the city's first "community engagement supervisor, " a job that pays an annual salary of $77,796. His duties include the "dissemination of information to the public and media."